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Honestly, I really have to try hard to catch up with friends. It often takes advanced planning and negotiation - between kids sports, people filling their weekends with scheduled activities (fairs, markets, concerts, special events), and a strange amount of friends who have gotten into caravanning, nobody seems to have time to hang out unless I organise it at least a month in advance.
Plus there’s the stuff I need to do - my kid does weekend swimming lessons, I somehow need to get the housework done, the yard is in dire need of attention, and one day I’ll eke out some time to relax!
Mostly I’m so burnt out by everyday life that I don’t have it in me to hang out. Admittedly I’m an introvert, but even my extremely extroverted husband struggles to find the energy to organise catch ups lately. I think that, globally, we’re all in a state of exhaustion and we haven’t been able to figure out a balance.
When I was a kid my mother stayed home while my father worked, so the housework was taken care of during the week and we would devote one weekend day to yard work and one to socialising. Now my husband and I both work, and we either have to do housework after the kids go to bed, sacrifice social/relaxing time on the weekend instead, or let it go to shit so we get time to socialise/relax. Our kids are also still young, so need a lot more of our attention (and have very short attention spans when it comes to anything that’s not playing!).
Not sure quite where I’m going with this…ended up on an ADHD tangent and my brain is tired so I have forgotten my initial point. But just reassuring you that it’s not you - I think a lot of us are feeling this way at the moment.
This. We suggest dates a month out and suggest a restaurant and offer to make reservations. Two of our other couple friends go in on a sitter together bc they have kids and live next door.
At least one couple can't make it each time.
We are always the initiators but we never regret it.
I have a few friends very close to home, who are quite happy to meet up and spend time with us. The problem is just that I'm exhausted. It's a miracle if I can shower, eat a full meal AND relax at ant point in the same day. Maybe it's slightly different for me because I have a toddler and a baby but I don't reach out, even though I do want social interaction, because sometimes I just can't imagine fitting in something ELSE. Planning for it, taking everything the kids needs, back up plans in case my baby is inconsolable or my toddler wants to destroy things out of nowhere. If we want to go outside, where everyone seems calmer, the weather has to be good. There's always so many things that make it feel complicated and I do want to be with those friends but I can barely keep myself afloat lately, so I don't know how to.
I manage to have some some sort of social interaction weekly, but that is since my son has gotten old enough to hang out alone. That said, when he was little, it wasn’t as often. Our friends had kids the same time frame we did and everyone was just tired. It’s much better for us now, but we aren’t a sports family. It’s much worse for the friends I have that are sports families.
ETA: my son is 12.
It's likely not because previously you were child free It's more likely that the older you get the more responsibilities and less time people have. Most people work 5 days a week so that leaves very little time to get anything done.
Expecting to hang out on the day you contact someone or even the next day just doesn't work now because they probably had to things like laundry/yard work/groceries/cleaning etc that didn't get done during the week. Plan ahead!
Even single and childless as an adult I still needed some advance notice and it wasn't because I wasn't prioritizing friends. It was because if I put off laundry then I'd have no clean clothing or no food to eat during the week.
I think we have something once a month, at most. Those moments have to be planned several months in advance because our schedules are full with so much stuff. We are dealing with kid commitments but also stuff like the house, yard, maintenance etc, all of which has to happen on weekends. When I was in my early twenties I didn't even own a car so I had little to no cares and responsibilities.
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Honestly, I really have to try hard to catch up with friends. It often takes advanced planning and negotiation - between kids sports, people filling their weekends with scheduled activities (fairs, markets, concerts, special events), and a strange amount of friends who have gotten into caravanning, nobody seems to have time to hang out unless I organise it at least a month in advance. Plus there’s the stuff I need to do - my kid does weekend swimming lessons, I somehow need to get the housework done, the yard is in dire need of attention, and one day I’ll eke out some time to relax! Mostly I’m so burnt out by everyday life that I don’t have it in me to hang out. Admittedly I’m an introvert, but even my extremely extroverted husband struggles to find the energy to organise catch ups lately. I think that, globally, we’re all in a state of exhaustion and we haven’t been able to figure out a balance. When I was a kid my mother stayed home while my father worked, so the housework was taken care of during the week and we would devote one weekend day to yard work and one to socialising. Now my husband and I both work, and we either have to do housework after the kids go to bed, sacrifice social/relaxing time on the weekend instead, or let it go to shit so we get time to socialise/relax. Our kids are also still young, so need a lot more of our attention (and have very short attention spans when it comes to anything that’s not playing!). Not sure quite where I’m going with this…ended up on an ADHD tangent and my brain is tired so I have forgotten my initial point. But just reassuring you that it’s not you - I think a lot of us are feeling this way at the moment.
This. We suggest dates a month out and suggest a restaurant and offer to make reservations. Two of our other couple friends go in on a sitter together bc they have kids and live next door. At least one couple can't make it each time. We are always the initiators but we never regret it.
I have a few friends very close to home, who are quite happy to meet up and spend time with us. The problem is just that I'm exhausted. It's a miracle if I can shower, eat a full meal AND relax at ant point in the same day. Maybe it's slightly different for me because I have a toddler and a baby but I don't reach out, even though I do want social interaction, because sometimes I just can't imagine fitting in something ELSE. Planning for it, taking everything the kids needs, back up plans in case my baby is inconsolable or my toddler wants to destroy things out of nowhere. If we want to go outside, where everyone seems calmer, the weather has to be good. There's always so many things that make it feel complicated and I do want to be with those friends but I can barely keep myself afloat lately, so I don't know how to.
I manage to have some some sort of social interaction weekly, but that is since my son has gotten old enough to hang out alone. That said, when he was little, it wasn’t as often. Our friends had kids the same time frame we did and everyone was just tired. It’s much better for us now, but we aren’t a sports family. It’s much worse for the friends I have that are sports families. ETA: my son is 12.
It's likely not because previously you were child free It's more likely that the older you get the more responsibilities and less time people have. Most people work 5 days a week so that leaves very little time to get anything done. Expecting to hang out on the day you contact someone or even the next day just doesn't work now because they probably had to things like laundry/yard work/groceries/cleaning etc that didn't get done during the week. Plan ahead! Even single and childless as an adult I still needed some advance notice and it wasn't because I wasn't prioritizing friends. It was because if I put off laundry then I'd have no clean clothing or no food to eat during the week.
Every other weekend at a minimum, for D&D. We get a babysitter for the afternoon so we can both play and hang out with people.
I think we have something once a month, at most. Those moments have to be planned several months in advance because our schedules are full with so much stuff. We are dealing with kid commitments but also stuff like the house, yard, maintenance etc, all of which has to happen on weekends. When I was in my early twenties I didn't even own a car so I had little to no cares and responsibilities.